<?php
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 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Next term',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/07/31.jpg" alt="Taking the main road by bake" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<p>
		I think I&apos;ve decided on a new plan of attack on getting <code>alchemy</code> released.
		Instead of aiming for two-item alchemy first, then one-item, then three and up in sequence, I&apos;m going to start with the set of elements available in the oldest Minetest Game versions, then add elements working my way up through the versions, mirroring my strategy for supporting all items for the now-defunct <code>minequest</code>.
		I&apos;m eager to get something released and reviewed, and I think this&apos;ll let me get something out there faster.
		I&apos;d like to know if there&apos;s even any interest in this sort of thing.
		With or without interest, I&apos;ll probably finish this project up for my own use, but I&apos;d be ecstatic to see this get use on other servers as well.
		This will mean putting off the release of <code>palette</code> though.
		That&apos;s fine by me.
		I think I could use a break from incessantly reworking the palette files anyway.
	</p>
	<p>
		There are 1 698 159 total combinations using the 23 modern elements available.
		I&apos;ll only need to come up with fifteen alchemic results to support the four elements available in the oldest version of Minetest Game in the Git repository though.
		While researching Minetest Game&apos;s history so I&apos;d have an idea of how I&apos;d be rolling out elemental support, I found five legacy elements that were removed from modern Minetest Game.
		I&apos;m strongly considering adding them back in.
		That&apos;d give me 28 elements, for a total of 11 698 222 combinations.
		Two of the elements are mushrooms, and another two are spores.
		In Minetest Game 0.4.13, mushrooms behaved kind of like farm crops, but not really.
		Spores could be grown into fertile mushrooms, which would then drop infertile mushrooms and more spores when harvested.
		The dropped mushrooms were made infertile to prevent players from endlessly gathering spores by placing and picking up the same mushroom repeatedly.
		Now, mushrooms grow much like flowers, and just sort of pop up where other mushrooms are around if the area&apos;s not too mushroom-dense already.
		The original spore method though ... it allowed <code>minestats</code> to count their harvesting!
		That allowed them to be treated as elements by <code>alchemy</code>.
		Mushroom elements could add some interesting alchemic results.
		The fifth legacy element is ... string.
		It&apos;s an outdated form of modern cotton.
		Cotton plants dropped string, which would then be crafted into wool nodes.
		String is making a comeback though.
		The working branch of Minetest Game has string that can be crafted from cotton, then crafted into firefly-catching nets.
		I might add direct string drops back into the game to use as elements as well.
		I&apos;m still unsure if I want to revive legacy elements.
		In some ways, it undermines development of the game.
		Bringing back string drops would be weird.
		These elements are a part of Minetest history though, even if the concept of alchemic elements wasn&apos;t a thing at the time.
		Also, I really think mushroom/spore drops are an excellent idea within the context of <code>minestats</code>.
		I really wish I&apos;d been active in the game during that short period, but that was during a long period of Minetest inactivity for me.
		I was probably around for string drops, but I didn&apos;t really pay attention to farming back then.
		I was more interested in mining, and my stat counter of that period used hard-coded mineral names.
		This was years before <code>minestats</code> came about.
	</p>
	<p>
		Hmm.
		If I&apos;m reviving legacy elements, maybe I shouldn&apos;t use the elements I&apos;ve defined myself for now.
		That&apos;d be obsidian, sand, and gravel.
		They have no historical significance whatsoever.
		Maybe I should just wait until all canonical elements, past and current, have been taken care of.
		That&apos;ll drop my distant target to supporting 25 elements, which would mean 3 850 755 alchemic recipes.
		It&apos;d also drop the number of elements needed to support alchemy gen 0 down to three, and consequently, I&apos;ve already come up with all the base recipes I need to start building that.
		The only three recipes for the four-element set I didn&apos;t have ideas yet for included gravel.
		Only seven alchemic recipes will be available at first, but it should work well for letting people see the concept and decide whether they want to see more or not.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		These are the courses I have remaining to take:
	</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Advanced Networking and Data Security">CS 4404</span>
		</li>
		<li>
			<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Data Structures">CS 3303</span>
			<ul>
				<li>
					<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Analysis of Algorithms">CS 3304</span>
					<ul>
						<li>
							<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Data Mining and Machine Learning">CS 4407</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>
							<ul>
								<li>
									<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Artificial Intelligence">CS 4408</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>
								</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Computer Graphics">CS 4406</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					<span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Information Retrieval">CS 3308</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			All of these: <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Web Programming 2">CS 3305</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Mobile Applications">CS 4405</span>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Operating Systems 2">CS 3307</span>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Software Engineering 2">CS 4403</span>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Comparative Programming Languages">CS 4402</span>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Databases 2">CS 3306</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Calculus">MATH 1211</span>, <span class="needed-for-associate" title="Introduction to Statistics">MATH 1280</span><em title="(proctored course)">*</em>, <span class="needed-for-bachelor" title="Discrete Mathematics">MATH 1302</span>
		</li>
		<li>
			<span class="needed-for-bachelor">One of these</span>: <span title="Introduction to Economics">ECON 1580</span>, <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span>, <span title="Emotional Intelligence">PSYC 1205</span>, <span title="Introduction to Psychology">PSYC 1504</span>, <span title="Introduction to Sociology">SOC 1502</span>
		</li>
		<li>
			<span class="needed-for-bachelor">four electives</span>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
		Course registration opened up today.
		I&apos;ve been dreading this.
		Last term, I couldn&apos;t register for the courses I needed, because all I have left to complete are electives, I&apos;m trying to use my electives toward bachelor-level courses I&apos;ll need, I&apos;m technically in an associate-level program for now, and the school stupidly bars associate-level students from taking courses needed for a bachelor degree, even when they&apos;re 1000-level or 2000-level courses.
		Last time, I exploited a loophole.
		There were a set of three courses, and I need one for an associate degree or two for a bachelor degree.
		The courses are therefore open to associate-level students, but I took two of them instead of just one.
		That&apos;s what I&apos;ve been doing this term.
		But now, I&apos;ve reached the end of the associate-level line, and need to choose two courses.
		One course would have to be <span title="Introduction to Statistics">MATH 1280</span>, which I need for my associate degree.
		I was going to take it last term as part of a pair of courses that needed to be proctored, but that plan went off the rails when the school wouldn&apos;t let me register for a needed proctored course to pair with it.
		This term, I&apos;d have to look through the options available and choose something, <strong>*anything*</strong>, to pair this course with, even though whatever course I choose would be wasted time and wasted credits.
		I wasn&apos;t allowed to choose something helpful toward my degree.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today, I went through the list of courses left I need, one by one, just in case.
		Maybe a course would have slipped through and I&apos;d be able to register for something useful.
		As it turns out, five courses are available!
		Of these, I need any one of them for my bachelor degree, but none of the others.
		Because they all fill the same requirement, are the only five that can fill that requirement, and are <strong>*all*</strong> available, I can&apos;t help but feel they were made available intentionally, though I can&apos;t fathom what makes these bachelor courses different than the other 1000- or 2000-level bachelor courses.
		The fact remains though: I needed to make this decision now.
		I couldn&apos;t go for a single must-have course and put off the deciding.
	</p>
	<p>
		The available courses are <span title="Introduction to Economics">ECON 1580</span>, <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span>, <span title="Emotional Intelligence">PSYC 1205</span>, <span title="Introduction to Psychology">PSYC 1504</span>, and <span title="Introduction to Sociology">SOC 1502</span>.
		I crossed <span title="Introduction to Economics">ECON 1580</span> off the list first.
		Economics is useful, but I&apos;m trying to make the most out of my school experience.
		I want something more interesting and applicable outside the world of business.
		Next, I took a look at <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span>.
		The description says it looks at how gender relates to health.
		Interesting.
		Being of nonstandard gender, that could be useful in understanding myself and my well-being.
		It also seems to be about understanding the things that affect quality of life.
		I could certainly use some help understanding how to improve my quality of life.
		Moving on to <span title="Emotional Intelligence">PSYC 1205</span>, it claims there will be research, and I got the impression that this &quot;research&quot; would be similar to what it was in <span title="English Composition 2">ENGL 1102</span>.
		No thanks.
		I do <strong>*not*</strong> want a repeat of that course, where we&apos;re asked to reach out to people outside the school to complete coursework while I&apos;m simultaneously being censored by the school, unallowed to share the fruits of my labour.
		As far as I&apos;m concerned, censorship goes both ways.
		If I&apos;m not allowed to let my university life to leak out into my personal life, then I <strong>*won&apos;t*</strong> allow my personal life (including any time in which I actually talk to people) be used as a medium for completing instructions given to me by the school.
		If school life has to be separate from my personal life, my personal life will likewise be separate from my school life.
		It&apos;s only fair, and it&apos;s only consistent.
		Going down the list, I came to <span title="Introduction to Psychology">PSYC 1504</span>.
		Psychology seems interesting and useful to me.
		However, the description of the course made it sound boring and mundane.
		Maybe I&apos;ll just study psychology on my own time sometime.
		Lastly, I we have <span title="Introduction to Sociology">SOC 1502</span>.
		The description mentions we&apos;d be studying collective behaviour.
		If I thought the course had much of an emphasis on that, I&apos;d jump on the chance to take the course.
		However, it also mentions a whole bunch of things about demographics that quite frankly, I don&apos;t care about.
		And they sound they they&apos;ll take up most of the course time.
		I&apos;d love to be able to put of the decision longer, but since I&apos;m out of time, I went with <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span>.
	</p>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<h3>0. It&apos;s true that censorship is wrong, based on intuitive knowledge.</h3>
		<p>
			&quot;Right&quot; and &quot;wrong&quot; are concepts we, as humans, have made up, at least in the context of morality.
			The terms, and morality itself, are completely subjective.
			It&apos;s obvious to me that censorship is wrong because I hate being censored.
			When I&apos;m being censored, it drags me into the pits of despair, and I don&apos;t like that feeling.
			That said, while I think it&apos;s wrong, that&apos;s only an opinion, and other people intuitively believe censorship to be a useful and valid tool.
			Governments and citizens alike use censorship every day.
			Copyright, for example, is a form of censorship.
		</p>
		<h3>1. It&apos;s true that Debian is a clean system free of harmful proprietary components, based on authoritative knowledge. It&apos;s worth noting that this is technically provable, but I don&apos;t have the time or skills to prove it. I accept it as true because I trust the sources I hear it from.</h3>
		<p>
			I need a clean and trustworthy operating system on which to do my computing.
			I don&apos;t have the time or the skills to check out every operating system component and other piece of software running on my machine though.
			I have to put my trust in others to do that for me.
			The Debian team seems to be the operating system team I&apos;ve ever seen that seems to be the most devoted to keeping their system free of proprietary garbage.
			They strictly apply their standards uniformly to everything that&apos;s a part of the system, too.
			Other people that seem to care, such as the $a[FSF], don&apos;t apply their own strict standards uniformly.
			The $a[FSF], for example, tries to claim that the same standards magically don&apos;t apply to certain types of components.
			The Debian team doesn&apos;t do that, making them much more reliable.
			I&apos;ve never heard anything valid held against them, either.
			They do their (mostly volunteer-based) job, and they do it very well.
			For that reason, I usually believe what they say without question, making them an authority in my life.
		</p>
		<h3>2. It&apos;s true that ideas are not property and cannot be owned or &quot;stolen&quot;, based on logical knowledge.</h3>
		<p>
			Logically, if something is stolen, the original owner no longer has it.
			If you copy an data or an idea though, the original holder of the idea still has it.
			Therefore, data and ideas cannot be &quot;stolen&quot;, only copied or (in the case of forgetting) erased.
		</p>
		<p>
			Culture and technology build off past generations.
			If people weren&apos;t copying each other&apos;s ideas and refining them, we wouldn&apos;t&apos;ve even progressed to the stone age, let alone past it.
			We probably wouldn&apos;t even have fire.
			I mean, how many people do you think learn how to make fire on their own without any help?
			This is knowledge that is passed down and is a part of our heritage as the human race.
			Copyright and patents obviously hold us back for exactly that reason: we&apos;re told we can&apos;t use existing idea and build off them.
		</p>
		<h3>3. It&apos;s true that short domain names (one letter dot two letters) can be purchased on a small budget if you&apos;re willing to put in the effort to track such available names down, based on empirical knowledge.</h3>
		<p>
			I&apos;ve wanted a short domain name for a very long time.
			I always assumed all the affordable ones were taken though.
			One month, I decided to go through the list of every $a[ccTLD] to figure out which even allowed short domain name registration, so would be able to figure out which already-purchased names were available for sale and bide my time.
			The plan was to wait until someone had gotten tired of waiting for their expensive short name to sell and dropped the price, at which point I&apos;d snatch it up.
			Either that, or wait long enough to save up the full asking price.
			I&apos;d planned for this to take years.
			In the span of a month, I looked into every $a[ccTLD].
			The fruits of my labours are available as <a href="https://y.st./en/URI_research/ccTLDs.xhtml">comprehensive notes on each $a[ccTLD]</a> on my website.
			When the month was over, I actually had several promising names available, and they were ready to be bought <strong>*right then*</strong> and fairly inexpensively.
			The easy to find names are already taken, but if you&apos;re willing to put in the effort, you can find a short, affordable domain name.
			They&apos;re not all taken as I&apos;d assumed.
			I should&apos;ve tried to get a name much sooner, but I didn&apos;t realise the goal was so in reach.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
